Northern Province Chief Minister C. V. Wigneswaran says that any solution sans the North-East merger would be destructive to the Tamil-speaking people. The Chief Minister’s comments come at a time when the interim report of the Constitutional Steering Committee on the proposed new constitution has temporarily stalemated following opposition from the Joint Opposition (JO) and the Muslim parties opposing the TNA demand for the North-East merger.

Answering a question from a member of the public whether a solution without a merger would not be possible, he asserted that the North and the East were traditional homelands of the Tamils before colonial rule and, after independence, the leaders of the majority community had systematically betrayed them of their rights and privileges. “The merger of the two provinces has to be ensured through negotiations with the Muslim parties and offering them an asymmetrical unit of devolution and unless it was done, the Tamils would perish similarly as the fate that befell the Burghers of this country,” he said.